


Lela Queen of the College Admissions Process

by Merlin Missy (mtgat)



Category: Teen Beach Movie (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward First Lesbian Crushes, F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide Treat, getting into college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5458424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtgat/pseuds/Merlin%20Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of TBM2, Lela chooses to stay in the future with her very best friend Mack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lela Queen of the College Admissions Process

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annemari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annemari/gifts).



> THEY ARE SO IN LOVE.

Money turns out to be her first and biggest problem. "You can stay with me," is only as useful as Mack's grandfather's modest income from the surf shop and the last payouts from her mother's life insurance policy. Most of the latter is locked up in a trust fund to pay for college. Lela dreams of going to college. She may have to dream for a long time.

"We'll figure something out," Mack says, with that easy grin of hers. She's busy saving the world with student government and science class. Lela follows her willingly, immersing herself in books and theories she's never even glimpsed before she came to this magical world where girls are valued for their brains as much as for how they fill out a bikini. It's worth every minute of hard work to catch up to the other students in the school, and Mack's beside her to help. But Lela needs a job.

"I can sing," she says to the hiring manager when she answers the posted cardboard ad for a new waitress. She jumps into her scales.

"Can you balance a tray and remember orders?"

"I sure can find out."

She doesn't make much money after school and on the weekends, not even with tips, and certainly not after dropping plates in the middle of a quick song and dance about spaghetti. "You can't always start a musical number," Mack says very seriously to her one night. "The real world has very few spontaneous musical numbers in it."

Lela throws herself back on the bed, exhausted. "I know. I'm learning. But the customer's last name was Baretti. I had to."

Mack's smile is sad and indulgent. "Next time, don't flip the tray up, okay?" She plays with Lela's hair, finally free from the tight bun she wears at work.

"Okay."

Mack helps her with homework. Lela is absorbing everything new like a sponge, but it's not always enough to understand what the teachers mean with their assignments. The first time she sits down at a computer and sees the letters she types just appear like _that_ on the screen, Lela lets out a delighted gasp of surprise. "I did that."

Mack squeezes her shoulder. "Yep. Now you have to do nine hundred and ninety-seven more about Alexander Hamilton before class on Thursday."

She's so tired, between school work and her job and helping out at Big Poppa's. She's been here in the future for almost three months when Mack decides they are taking a break.

"I don't have time."

"Take it from a world class overachiever. You need to make time. It's Thanksgiving, you don't have a shift, and homework can wait." Mack pulls up a turkey bacon pizza recipe from the Internet, which together they eventually manage to get cooking in the oven. Then Mack pops in The Movie.

Lela's nervous. She's never watched The Movie, not really. Mack locked herself in her own room the night everything happened, the night Lela made her decision, and Brady made his, and when Mack came out of the room all she would say was that everything was going to be okay.

People don't seem to remember Brady now. Mack gets a quiet look now and then, but other than her and Lela, there may not be anyone else in the whole future to remember him, not even Devon. At least, no one who remembers who he used to be.

"This movie was banned when it was first released," Mack says, clicking on the Blu-Ray player.

"No it wasn't, you kidder." Lela has clear memories of her days inside the plot of 'Wet Side Story.' The film was as squeaky clean as Ivory soap. She was happy there, had been happy, until she became aware of the repetition of her life and longed for more.

"That was your movie. I wondered why Granddad only had a bootleg copy." She settles beside Lela with a big bag of popcorn with chocolate chips sprinkled on and mixed in. Heaven!

The opening credits roll. Lela gulps nervously, wondering what is left of her past, of her friends. The opening number fills the room with music, nostalgia written large in a chorus. Tanner's there. She misses him sometimes, but mostly as someone she used to think was her meant to be.

Reading her mind, Mack reaches for her hand. By the time Brady walks into the scene at Big Momma's and starts singing "Cruisin' for a Bruisin'" with Butchy and the gang, Lela knows things are different. When Brady goes on stage to sing "Falling for Ya," she feels her face light up in glee.

"They don't need me for the story to go on."

"And no one ever loved that movie more than Brady did," Mack says. "It was meant to be."

"Yeah."

She's more thoughtful over the days after Thanksgiving. The lingering guilt over abandoning her home has faded into more modern regrets. She still has no money except what the café owner pays her. She wants to apply for colleges beside Mack, and Big Poppa has helped her in a big way by coming home one day in December from a trip to the city with a large manila envelope. After he coaxes her to open it, she finds a birth certificate and Social Security card both in the name of Lela Gray.

"Thank you," she says breathlessly, hugging him tightly. Mack has explained everything in the future means having enough identification to get by. Big Poppa has many friends who've obtained their own identification in the USA by working the back channels.

He hugs her back, patting her head like he does Mack's. "Welcome to the land of opportunity. And Merry Christmas."

Her grades at school are pretty good. Mack says she can get away with the lack of any other records by saying she was home-schooled. "I've been telling the other kids at school the same thing."

"It's because I'm weird."

"You're not weird. You're unique." Mack takes her hands. "There is no one in the world like you. We are lucky to know you, Lela Gray."

They both hear back from the same private college they applied to down the coast. Lela's acceptance envelope is bigger than Mack's. "What's in it?"

"Well, open it."

Inside, Lela finds a thick stack of papers offering her scholarships and asking her to fill out forms to request more. "I got in."

Mack opens hers, worry on her face. "I did too! And they'll help me set up the transfers from the trust fund." Her face twists. "I'm never going to see it. I was kind of hoping to set aside some of that for a car."

It's Lela's turn to smile. "I could use some help at the café. We can work the rest of the school year and save up together for a car."

"On one condition. No duets."

"I can't make that promise."

School goes by so fast, into graduation worries, and finals. Lela doesn't even consider what's coming until Mack picks her up from her physics study hall one April day and says, "We should go dress shopping this weekend."

Lela's mind is buzzing. "Dresses?"

"For prom."

"Oh." She's seen the signs up, but she hasn't had time to think about any of that sort of thing. She hasn't danced since she declared she had to be free to be herself. There's also this odd air between her and Mack now. Mack's clearly excited about the dance. All Lela knows about proms is that boys and girls are supposed to take their true love and dance together and fall in love forever. That's what the movies all say.

"I'm thinking we can go to that one store in the mall. They have a blue gown I think you'd look amazing in."

"I guess. What are you going to wear?"

"I've got that pink dress. It's still got one more dance in it."

Lela clutches her books, remembering how nice Mack looked in that dress, and how everything fell into place under those lights. "Do you, um, have a date?"

Mack rolls her eyes and bumps into Lela gently. "I think I do, yeah."

Her heart falls a little. "Oh. I guess I could come along with the two of you."

"Two of who?"

"You and your date."

"You mean you? You want to go, right?" Mack makes a weird little face with her lips all on edge and nervous as a girl on a surfboard for the very first time. "You want to go to the prom with me? Right?"

Lela is confused, and then she isn't any more. "Right."

The dress is as blue as the perfect wave. Lela feels like the Queen of the Ocean as she steps out onto the dance floor under all the lights. This time she's not falling. This time she knows where she's meant to be. She and Mack are going off to college together, following every dream either can imagine. Tonight, they're folding each other into an embrace as the music builds.

Lela can't help but sing, though she keeps it low and for Mack's ears only. "Take a look around at this amazing world, where you can have it all even if you're a girl. Imagine the possibilities. Yeah, this is right where I wanna be." She pulls her face back. "Your arms are right where I wanna be."

"Where I wanna be," Mack echoes, and then there's no space left between them to sing.


End file.
